


The Orphanage

by Not_An_Alien



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Orphanage, And I know I will miss a week so, Aromantic Asexual Pidge | Katie Holt, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), But the chapters are short, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gay Keith (Voltron), Gay Shiro (Voltron), I try to update weekly, M/M, Orphan Hunk (Voltron), Orphan Keith (Voltron), Orphan Lance (Voltron), Orphan Pidge | Katie Holt (Voltron), Orphan Shiro (Voltron), Slow Build, Slow Burn, oh well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-04 11:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17303873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_An_Alien/pseuds/Not_An_Alien
Summary: Lance spent his life forgetting the orphanage. Soon after the accident, he'd been adopted by his aunt and uncle who'd spent months looking for him. However, ten years of therapy would soon crash down as memories of the place he forced himself to forget come racing back.Hunk was a good kid. He really was. He tried his best to be good and obey the rules. He may slip up sometimes, but what had he ever done to deserve this?Pidge knew something bigger had happened the night of the accident. She'd spent the last ten years trying to find out what. She wanted to know the truth, until she didn't.Keith was finally free from the foster system after fifteen years. He was ready to start his life, but the horrors of what happened during the accident still haunted him. One night, he receives a text from someone he hadn't seen in ten years, and everything starts coming together.Shiro's mom had run the orphanage and had been one of the casualties in the accident. He started a new life in her memory and was thriving with a good job and handsome fiance. But all that would be taken from him unless he returned.The last five survivors of an accident come together to unbury the truth from ten years back.





	1. Prologue

"We have to get out of here!" Fifteen-year-old Takashi Shirogane shouted to his mother.

"Honey, go gather some of the kids and help them outside, I'll be with you soon," he mother told him. "I love you," she said, then ran in the opposite direction, long black hair flowing behind her before her son had the chance to respond.

Once his mother disappeared, Shiro turned around and started frantically calling for any of the children. There were two hundred total in the orphanage and yet Shiro couldn't seem to find any of them. He was about to leave one bedroom when he heard a faint sob from beneath one of the beds. Quietly, Shiro approached the bed and looked underneath to find a small girl curled up and crying to herself.

"Hey, there," Shiro said gently. "What's your name?"

The girl looked up at him. "Katie," she said softly.

"Well, hi, Katie," Shiro said. "My name is Shiro."

The girl sniffled. "I know," she said. "You're Ms. Shirogane's son."

Shiro smiled to himself at the girl's recognition. He was a bit of a celebrity to the children here. "Well, Katie, it's time to go now. Can you come out?"

The girl thought to herself for a moment before slowly nodding and crawling out from under the bed and attaching herself to Shiro's arm. "Will we come back?" Katie asked him.

Shiro looked down sympathetically at the young girl before answering. "I don't know."

The two of them continued to search for more kids, however they were beginning to run out of time.

"Shiro, I'm scared," Katie said at one point. He was about ready to just take the girl and run out of the building. "What if- Do you hear that?"

Shiro was silent as he listened for whatever it was that Katie had heard.

"We need to get out of here!"

"No, we need to find more people!"

"Can't we just-"

"Quiet, Hunk. The grown-ups are talking."

"I'm older than you!"

The bickering continued as Shiro and Katie stepped into a side room where two boys were squabbling as a third tried to calm them down. Shiro recognized one of them immediately.

"Keith!" He exclaimed, and all three boys turned towards him and Katie.

Keith's face brightened once he saw Shiro and he ran up to the older boy in greeting. "I'm glad you're okay! Where's everyone else?"

"I don't know," Shiro said. "Other than you three, Katie here is the only one I've found." He gestured to where Katie was hiding slightly behind him.

"We need to find them!" Keith insisted.

Shiro sighed, knowing what he had to do. "We can't, Keith."

"What?" The boy asked. "Why not?"

"Unfortunately, your friend is right," Shiro said, and one of the two other boy's face lit up with pride. "We don't have enough time to find them. We have to leave."

"What?" Keith said. "But- but-"

"No buts," Shiro said.

"But Lance isn't my friend!"

"What?"

Keith looked him dead in the eye, having to look straight up because he was eight. "He. Is. Not. My. Friend."

The smaller of the other two boys let out a shocked gasp. "Well, you're not my friend either!"

Shiro shook his head. "We can fight about that later. For now, we have to go before she-"

Suddenly, the house shook and a large ceiling tile fell, barely missing the boy Shiro assumed was Hunk, who let out a yelp and ran towards Shiro for protection.

"Come on, let's go!" Shiro yelled, picking up Katie and using his other hand to rush the boys out of the room and into the hall. The five kids kept running until they made it to the front door.

Keith and Lance tried to push it open, but had no luck. "The door's locked, Shiro!" Keith yelled.

Shiro pushed on the door himself, but it wouldn't budge. Frantically, he looked around the room until he spotted just what he needed. "Watch Katie," he said, putting her down next to Lance, who didn't hesitate to hold onto the young girl.

"What are you doing?" Keith asked as Shiro marched across the room and picked up a wooden chair, immediately turning back around and rushing back with the chair held above his head.

"Oh my cheese, he's going to kill us!" Hunk screamed right before Shiro swung the chair into a window next to the door, shattering it completely.

"Get through the window!" Shiro commanded the children.

Keith was the first one out, then Lance helped Katie through, Keith helping her down, before he jumped through himself. "I always believed in you," Hunk said as he climbed through the window. Shiro climbed out last, but before he made it out, he heard a large crash behind him and he whipped his head around, forgetting that he was in a broken window. He let out a cry of pain as a shard of glass cut a solid line across his nose, very likely deep enough to very likely need stitches.

"Shiro, come on!" He heard Keith yell from outside. He turned back and finished climbing out the window, running to join the kids that were already at least sixty feet away from the orphanage.

"Why isn't anyone else out here?" Lance asked, looking around.

"I don't know." Shiro answered, turning back towards the orphanage.

"Is anyone else going to come out?" Hunk asked.

"I don't know," Shiro answered again, sitting down in the grass.

Suddenly, Katie appeared in his vision, she was holding out a small blanket she must have grabbed on her way out. "This is for your nose," she said simply.

Shiro chuckled and took the blanket, putting it over his nose to stop the dark red blood that had flowed down and was dripping off his chin and into the grass. "Thank you, Katie," he said, and the young girl beamed.

"Aren't the police coming?" Keith asked.

"They should be," Shiro said through the blanket.

"I wonder if they'll find anyone else," Lance said aloud.

The police showed up an hour later. Immediately, a few rushed into the orphanage while a couple of others helped the five kids off the ground where they'd been sitting. Nobody else had come out yet. Shiro was taken to the hospital to get stitches, and the rest of the kids were questioned for what happened.

Tragedy at Orphanage: Only five survivors

They didn't find anyone else. They had been the only survivors. Shiro managed to keep an eye on the other four children until they were either adopted, in Lance and Hunk's case, or put safely into a foster home, in Keith and Katie's case. After that, he never saw the kids again. He had been taken in by his grandmother who he lived with until adulthood. He got a job as a police officer and by the age of twenty-four, he was engaged to his boyfriend, Adam. Shiro managed to move on from the orphanage and his mother, but even ten years later, he couldn't help but wonder what happened to the four kids he'd saved from the orphanage.


	2. The Text

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School sucks, y'all.

"I'm fine... I'm sure. Yes... I'll call you once I'm there... Okay, bye," Keith hung up on his former foster mother who still liked to check up on him, grabbed his bag from the seat beside him, and got out of the Uber. The city streets were ominously quiet at the time, but to be fair, it was three in the morning. Keith approached the apartment building in front of him, checking the sign to make sure he had the right one, and pushed open the door to step into a small lobby. The lobby wasn't anything fancy, just a couple couches, plastic plants, and a cluttered desk manned by an older man with the brightest orange hair Keith had ever seen in his life and what appeared to be a handlebar mustache.

The man looked up from the magazine he was reading (Mustaches Weekly?) as Keith walked in a flashed a bright white smile. "Welcome to Altea Apartments," he greeted in an accent that Keith couldn't place. "What can I do ya for?"

Keith gripped the strap of his bag and approached the desk. "My name is Keith Kogane," he told the man. "I'm moving into an apartment here."

The man's face flickered in recognition and he grinned again. "So you're the new tenant! My name is Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe. You're moving into apartment 36, right?"

"I think so," Keith answered, faintly remembering the information his foster father had given him earlier. As soon as Keith graduated high school, he was ready (read: forced) to move out of his foster parents' place so they could make room for another child. Fortunately, instead of just kicking him onto the streets of California, they found him an apartment only a town away. He presumed he would stay there until he found a job and got enough money to either go to college or move somewhere else. It wasn't like he wasn't used to moving around anyway. That's what happened when you were an orphan with no living relatives that wanted you.

Coran reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a key labeled '36' and handed it to Keith, who took it hesitantly. "The elevator is currently broken, but the stairs are just down that hallway and to the left. The air conditioning may take a couple hours to turn on because I didn't think you would be arriving yet and didn't to turn it on in that room, but I will be doing that soon. If you need anything else, just let me know!"

Keith was about to thank Coran and leave when he noticed a framed picture of a little girl around nine sitting on the desk. She was sitting on a swing in a playground, smiling widely at whoever was holding the camera. She had dark chocolate skin that greatly contrasted with her long, snowy white hair that was held back in a single long ponytail. Her light pink dress was covered in designs of flowers Keith had never seen before, and the skirt of the dress was flying around her as the girl kicked her legs forward, revealing her white tights. The picture looked to be at least twenty years old.

"Who's that?" Keith asked before he could stop himself.

Coran followed his gaze to the picture. His expression softened as he looked fondly at the little girl. "That's my niece, Allura," the older man answered quietly. "Her father founded Altea Apartments. It hasn't been the same since he and his family moved to Arizona. I- I haven't seen them since."

"Oh," Keith said, realizing he had brought up what was probably a touchy subject for the man. "I'm sorry."

Coran waved him off. "It's quite alright. It was a long time ago. You can go ahead and check out your apartment now."

Without hesitation, Keith left the man alone in favor of finding the stairs. It wasn't hard to find his apartment. After walking up to the third floor, he only had to look at each of the large signs on each door to find number 36. He fiddled with the key for a moment and unlocked the door, easily pushing it open and stepping inside the apartment. It was small, but it was mostly furnished, and as Coran had said, the air conditioning wasn't running, so the air in the room was heavy and fairly warm, only the best for summer in northern California.

He set his phone down on the counter for only a moment when it buzzed with a text. Figuring it was his foster mother again, Keith picked up his phone again and checked the text, only to find out that it definitely wasn't her.

To Keith:

(3:20) Hello, Keith. This is Katie Holt. I'm not sure if you remember me, but we were both survivors of the accident at Voltron Orphanage ten years ago. My brother and I would like to recruit you in investigating what happened that night.

~

The alarm blared in Lance's ears for the fifth time in the past ten minutes. In response, Lance just groaned and pushed his face into his pillow.

"You can't hide in your pillow forever, Lance," he heard his cousin, Alicia, shout from right outside his bedroom. "It's our last day of senior year!"

Alicia was ten months older than Lance, but she was still in the same grade as him. They'd been in most of the same classes since third grade, a McClain-Sanchez duo that teachers feared.

Lance looked up from his bed to where Alicia was leaning against the doorway, already ready to go. Her short brown hair was perfectly and naturally curled and she was fully dressed in a loose, dark blue tank top with a tighter black one underneath, slightly ripped blue jeans, and black boots with a matching black beanie sitting on her head. Around her neck was a silver chain with her class ring. Lance wore a matching chain every day. They both looked very much alike. The one big difference between them was that while Lance had dark blue eyes, Alicia's were a bright, earthy green that she had gotten from her father.

"Just give me five more minutes, Alli," Lance muttered from within the pillow, but Alicia wasn't having any of that. She pushed herself off the side of the doorway, marched across the room to Lance's bed, and pulled off all his covers in one swift movement. Lance helped in protest of the sudden lack of warmth and glared up at his cousin who was smirking down at him.

"Get up, sleepyhead," she said smugly before leaving the room, taking Lance's blankets with her. Lance let out a long, annoyed groan before literally rolling out of bed, landing on the floor with a thump.

Eventually, he managed to get off the floor and into the bathroom. Today he decided to wear the dark blue jeans that made his ass pop, his favorite white t-shirt that read 'Getting Bi,' his usual sneakers, and an unbuttoned blue flannel with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. "This'll work," he thought to himself before putting on his sunglasses for Aesthetic™ and walking downstairs to where his aunt was making breakfast.

"Buenos días, Lance," his aunt said without looking up from the bacon.

"Buenos días, Tía Amelia," Lance said, taking a seat at the table with Alicia and Gabriella, a junior with dark brown eyes and curly black hair pulled back into twin ponytails, as his aunt gave them each their respective breakfasts.

"Don't forget, Lance, you have a therapy session after school," his aunt reminded him as if he would ever forget three months in a row.

"Most graduating seniors spend the evening after there last day at parties, Lance," Gabriella teased from across the table.

"Hey," Lance argued, "just because I pay a visit to my therapist doesn't mean I won't be the biggest party animal in town tonight."

"That's kind of hard to do with a fifty-some-year-old woman," Gabriella threw back.

"I'll have you know Orla is a delight. I could listen to her stories about her niece and her crazy uncle all day. She's the coolest woman in Florida!" The two continued their banter, Alicia occasionally joining in, until Amelia had had enough and insisted that her daughters and nephew get to school before they were late.

Lance was climbing into the passenger's side of Alicia's car when he felt his phone Buzz in his back pocket. He pulled it out and froze as he read the text.

To Lance:

(7:20) Hello, Lance. This is Katie Holt. I'm not sure if you remember me, but we were both survivors of the accident at Voltron Orphanage ten years ago. My brother and I would like to recruit you in investigating what happened that night.

~

Hunk waved to his co-worker, Bandor, as he left the pizza shop he worked at that night. It felt good to finally be out of high school, and Hunk was excited to take over his adoptive parents' pizza shop in a couple years. Not to brag or anything, but Hunk's moms ran the best pizza shop in all of Hawaii. He was already working there, and his mom's had been training him for years to take over the family pizza shop. It was a tradition for the oldest child to take over once his or her parents retired. It would be a while before Hunk took over, though. It took a lot to take down Evelyn and Abigail Lee-Kaur.

Hunk found his way back to his house easily. He walked this route twice a day, seven days a week. He quickly went through his night routine before climbing into bed at his usual time of ten o'clock. It didn't take long for Hunk to start dreaming, but this dream was not about food.

He was standing in a familiar room. There was a single table and a few chairs scattered throughout the place, but other than that, it was bare of any kind of detail. Hunk was about to look around for the food that usually came in his dreams, when a ceiling tile fell from practically nowhere and landed an inch away, causing the teenager to help in surprise.

Then, he noticed a door appearing open on the other side of the room and two faceless figures, one a guy just younger than him and the other a very young girl, rushed into the room. It was at that moment that a young, also faceless, but still familiar, boy ran from behind him to greet the newcomers, soon to be followed by two other faceless boys, one of which looked surprisingly like himself. After a couple seconds, Hunk realized why everything seemed so familiar.

This had actually happened.

Hunk followed the figures as they ran towards the front entrance of the building. He watched as the oldest of them used a chair to break a window and all five of them climbed out.

That was it. That was all that had happened, but for some reason Hunk wasn't able to follow them outside. It was as if there was an invisible barrier in the window keeping him from leaving. If he couldn't leave, then why was he still there?

He did not like the answer. After a couple more attempts at pushing through the window barrier, Hunk turned around to see three figures standing at the end of the hallway.

"Oh, cheese," he cursed silently to himself, realizing what was happening. Slowly, the three figures began to approach him in complete sync. Then, the short one on the right disappeared in a cloud of dust, followed shortly by the tall one on the left, leaving just the one in the middle. Eventually, she reached where Hunk was standing against the wall and raised one dark, shaky hand out to simply touch his forehead, then she disappeared as well.

Hunk woke up to the sound of his phone buzzing on his end table. He reached over and picked it up to check the text, momentarily blinded before he read the text and dropped his phone on the floor.

To Hunk:

(1:20) Hello, Hunk. This is Katie Holt. I'm not sure if you remember me, but we were both survivors of the accident at Voltron Orphanage ten years ago. My brother and I would like to recruit you in investigating what happened that night.

~

Shiro didn't want adventure the way he used to. He used to want to become an astronaut and explore the galaxy. Now, he just wanted to get married to his fiance in two months and live the rest of his life peacefully by his side.

But the universe had other ideas.

Shiro had picked his life up after his mother died. He'd lived with his grandma in Minnesota for a few years before heading off to an academy and soon getting a job as a police officer. He proposed to the love of his life and they were supposed to be married soon. He was financially stable, with a nice house and car, and he figured that nothing could ruin all that now.

But no.

Nothing could be easy.

"I have to go to Arizona," Shiro said.

Adam paused mid-sip. "What?"

"I have to go to Arizona," Shiro repeated.

Adam slowly put his coffee mug down. "Why?"

"I-" Shiro hesitated. There was no way he could tell his soon-to-be-husband the real reason he was going to Arizona. The man would never let him go if he knew. "I would like to visit my mother's grave before we get married.

"Then I'll come with you-" Adam started, standing up from the table.

"You shouldn't," Shiro said, harsher than he should have.

"Why not, Takashi?" Adam asked. His expression was a mixture of fear, confusion, and anger. Not a good combination.

"This is something I need to do alone," Shiro said softly, hoping that would be enough for his fiance. But, of course, it wasn't.

"You shouldn't have to, though," Adam argued.

"And yet I do," Shiro responded. He then softened his voice some and looked his fiance in the eye for the pleading attack. "Please, Adam."

It was very effective.

Adam sighed and sat back down, taking a long sip of his coffee. "Alright," he said. "I'll let you go. Just, please, be back before the wedding."

Shiro smiled softly. "You can count on me being here."

He should be back by July 31st.

He backed his bags quickly before leaving the house. He had a three o' clock flight to Phoenix. He couldn't afford to be late. He got to the airport roughly half an hour before the plane took off. He sat in his seat and looked out the tiny window as Minnesota disappeared. He hoped he was doing the right thing by leaving Adam behind. He just had to make sure the text he'd gotten early yesterday morning hadn't been lying.

To Shiro:

(5:20) Hello, Shiro. This is Katie Holt. I'm not sure if you remember me, but we were both survivors of the accident at Voltron Orphanage ten years ago. My brother and I would like to recruit you in investigating what happened that night.

~

"I think I've got it," Matt said, shoving his laptop into his younger sister's face. Pidge read over the article quickly before looking back up to her brother.

"Of course," she said. "Why didn't I think of that before?"

"I know, I'm a genius," Matt said, leaning back in his chair with a cocky smile on his face.

"Just one problem, though," Pidge said.

Matt sat back up in his chair. "What's that?"

"We don't know where to find them, dumbass."

Matt's expression dropped. "Oh, yeah." He thought for a few moments before his face lit up again. "Are you up for hacking into some government files?"

Pidge snorted. "When am I not?"

The two had found each other in the foster system only four years prior and had hit it off the second they found out they were actually related. After a few months, Pidge told Matt about something she'd been investigating, and Matt didn't hesitate to agree to helping her. The two moved down to Arizona once Matt turned eighteen, and they'd been looking for answers together ever since. However, before that night, they hadn't gotten very far.

Before long, the Holt siblings had found four phone numbers, and Pidge pulled out her phone to send four matching texts that she hoped would bring them one step closer to finding out what happened that night ten years ago.

From Pidge:

(4:20) Hello, Keith. This is Katie Holt. I'm not sure if you remember me, but we were both survivors of the accident at Voltron Orphanage ten years ago. My brother and I would like to recruit you in investigating what happened that night.

From Pidge:

(4:20) Hello, Lance. This is Katie Holt. I'm not sure if you remember me, but we were both survivors of the accident at Voltron Orphanage ten years ago. My brother and I would like to recruit you in investigating what happened that night.

From Pidge:

(4:20) Hello, Hunk. This is Katie Holt. I'm not sure if you remember me, but we were both survivors of the accident at Voltron Orphanage ten years ago. My brother and I would like to recruit you in investigating what happened that night.

From Pidge:

(4:20) Hello, Shiro. This is Katie Holt. I'm not sure if you remember me, but we were both survivors of the accident at Voltron Orphanage ten years ago. My brother and I would like to recruit you in investigating what happened that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aren't time zones a beautiful thing?


	3. The Closet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watch as I change the texting format

"Lance! Wake up, Lance!"

Lance groaned and slowly turned around in his bed to see his friend, Hunk, peeking over the side of the mattress. "What's the matter, Hunk?" He mumbled tiredly, rubbing one of his eyes.

"I think I saw something in the closet," the young boy answered, sounding terrified. Lance noticed that he was hugging a light yellow blanket against his chest.

"Ms. Shirogane said there wasn't anything in the closet, though," Lance said in an attempt to comfort his friend.

"But what if she was wrong?" Hunk asked. "What if there is something in there? What if it comes out? What if it kills us all?"

Lance sat up in his bed and patted Hunk's shoulder. "I'll go and look to see if there's anything in the closet. Then you'll be able to sleep, okay?"

"But what if it attacks you?" Hunk protested.

"It'll be fine, Hunk." Lance pushed his blue blankets over to the side and climbed out of his bed. He slowly crossed the room, the floorboards creaking under his weight and Hunk following nervously. When he reached the closet, he reached out his hand and grabbed the rusty handle. Then, with one final, swift movement, he opened the door.

~

Lance:  
(7:22) who r u???

Pidge:  
(7:23) Katie Holt, but you can call me Pidge  
(7:23) I figured you might not remember so I'll clarify.  
(7:24) The two of us were both survivors of the accident at Voltron Orphanage. I was the little girl who was clinging to Shiro the whole time.

Lance:  
(7:26) voltron orphanage?

Pidge:  
(7:27) Yeah

Lance:  
(7:30) i think you have the wrong number

~

Shiro walked out of the airport to where an Uber was waiting for him. Climbing in, he gave the driver the address of his hotel, then sat back in his seat. He wasn't supposed to meet Pidge for until the next day, so he figured he'd have plenty of time to settle into the hotel room he'd booked beforehand.

The hotel he chose was nothing special. He figured he wouldn't be there half the time anyway, so there wasn't much of a point spending a lot of money on a fancy room. At least there was WiFi.

Shiro set his suitcase down next to his bed, then turned his phone on to text Adam.

Shiro:  
(17:33) I made it to Phoenix and am now in my hotel room. I miss you already!

Shiro turned off his phone and pulled open the curtains of his room's single window. He was on the second story with a beautiful view of the parking lot. And was that a gas station over there? Shiro could get used to this.

Shiro's phone buzzed with a text he expected to be from Adam, only to find that that wasn't the case.

Pidge:  
(17:36) One of the kids who escaped with us was named Lance Charles McClain, right?

Shiro:  
(17:37) Right.

Pidge:  
(17:38) And he moved to Florida soon after, right?

Shiro:  
(17:40) I believe so, yes.

Pidge:  
(17:47) K thanks.

~

"Shiro, is there something in the closet?" Keith asked, looking up at the older boy from his bed.

Shiro looked slightly shocked by his question. Keith wasn't exactly known for being scared of the dark or anything for that matter. Shiro gently sat down at the end of the young boy's bed and smiled gently. "Of course there isn't, Keith. There is absolutely nothing in here to be afraid of."

"But I heard two of the other boys saying that there was something in their closet," Keith argued.

Shiro pressed him lips together in a firm line before answering. "Sometimes people think they saw something they really hadn't. They could have just seen an old toy or a dirty sock."

"Why a sock?" Keith questioned.

Shiro shrugged. "Why not a sock?"

"Because that's stupid," Keith deadpanned.

"And therefore, there is no reason to be afraid of it. There is nothing that wants to hurt you here," Shiro concluded, but this barely seemed to comfort Keith. 

"What if it doesn't want to hurt me, but it has no choice but to hurt me?"

~

"So, like, is Lance avoiding me on purpose, or did I really get the wrong number?" Pidge asked, swinging her legs back and forth as she sat on the library table.

"I don't know, Pidge. Why don't you ask him?" Matt answered plainly. "And get your butt away from my computer!"

"Get your computer away from my butt!" Pidge shot back to her brother.

"Maybe Lance just doesn't want to come back to the orphanage," Matt suggested, changing the subject. "Everyone disappearing except for five kids could be pretty traumatizing for an eight-year-old."

Pidge considered her brother's words for a moment. "I guess I didn't really think about what would happen if they didn't want to come back. I mean, Hunk's on a plane to Phoenix right now, Shiro already got here, and Keith is driving out from California tomorrow. I don't know why I didn't consider that Lance might not want to come. Should I just leave him alone? I mean, four out of five survivors is good enough, right?"

"I don't know, sis," Matt said, taking a moment to look up from his computer. "The supernatural might not settle for an eighty percent, but we'll have to wait and find out. We shouldn't force them to come, though."

"Yeah," Pidge said, her shoulders slumping in defeat. "I guess you're right. I'll just leave Lance alone now."

"It's your decision, Pidge," Matt said, standing up from the table. "Now, come on. It is getting seriously late and that librarian definitely wants to kick us out now."

~

Pidge:  
(23:21) Sorry if I bothered you this morning. It's fine if you don't want to come. Just thought I'd ask.  
(23:27) Everyone else is coming though.

Lance is typing...

~

Katie sat in her bed, staring at the ceiling. There was a group of girls sitting in a circle fifteen feet away with a flashlight telling ghost stories. Naturally, Katie had been left out. She pretended that she didn't mind, but being the youngest girl in the room meant that not many of the older girls wanted to do big girl things with you.

"And then, the monster jumped out and bit the little girl's head right off!" One of the girls finished her story, sending the others girls into a fit of squeals and giggles.

"Alright, girls," Katie hear Ms. Shirogane enter the room, "it's time for you to go to bed. We don't want the scary stories keeping you all up all night."

"It's fine, Ms. Shirogane," one of the girls, Sheila, said. "None of us are scared. We're big girls!"

"I bet Katie's scared," another girl, Rory, announced. The rest of the girls started laughing at "Little Lady Katie" as they constantly called her. It made no sense as an insult to Katie, but you know, whatever floats your boat.

"That's enough girls," Ms. Shirogane sternly said. "Let's leave poor Katie alone and get to bed."

The rest of the girls immediately forgot about Katie and ran off to their beds. Ms. Shirogane made her way to Katie's bed and leaned down to speak to the young girl.

"Don't let the other girls get to you, Katie," she said kindly. "I know that you are much stronger than they think you are. You can do great things, Katie. I know you can." The woman started to exit before she stopped and turned to say one more thing to her. "Besides, there's nothing here that will ever hurt you. I promise."

But Katie wasn't sure if she believed the last part.

~

The drive to Arizona had not been friendly. Keith had managed to borrow his former foster father's old car that the air conditioning didn't work. He quickly packed up and left early the following morning for a fourteen hour drive in a stuffy car with late spring California weather. At least McDonald's had WiFi.

Arriving in Phoenix, Keith found a relatively cheap-looking hotel and walked inside, only to bump into another human being that was significantly larger than he was.

"Keith?" Keith looked up at the person he'd bumped into and froze as he saw a face he hadn't seen in years.

"Shiro?" The man in front of him lit up as Keith recognized him, and he quickly, without warning, pulled Keith into a tight embrace.

"It's so good to see you again, Keith!" Shiro said, not letting go. "You've grown so much!" Shiro let go of Keith and held him by the shoulders at arm's length. "I'm still taller than you, though."

Keith... somehow couldn't find it in him to be bothered by the sudden physical contact. Being honest, he hadn't realized how much he missed his old friend until that moment almost ten years after they had last spoken.

Keith chuckled lightly at Shiro's comment. "So I've noticed."

The two stood there a few moments before Shiro let go of Keith's shoulders. "Sorry for, uh, attacking you there. I just haven't seen you in so long and I got kind of excited."

Keith smiled fondly. "It's fine. I'm happy to see you, too, Shiro."

~

"You can't hide in the stall forever, Lance!" Alli's voice came through the door.

"Why are you even in here?" Lance asked from where he was sitting on the toilet. "This is the guys' bathroom."

"Signs can't stop me and nobody else is here," Alli answered. "Now open up and tell me what's wrong."

Lance groaned dramatically. "There's nothing wrong, Alli. I'm just trying to peacefully take a shit during my lunch break."

"Your pants aren't down, Lance. The only shit that's going on here is coming out of your mouth."

Lance sputtered. "Did you look under the door?"

"I have seen you butt naked on many occasions, dear cousin. I wouldn't have seen your tiny penis anyway."

Lance sputtered again. "It isn't tiny! Or even relatively small!"

Alli chuckled from outside the stall. "Getting back onto the matter at hand, why are you upset?"

"I- I um," Lance started. "I got a text this morning... from a person who was in the old orphanage with me. She, uh, she wanted my help finding out what happened there."

"Wasn't it a gas leak?" Alli questioned, leaning her side against the stall door.

"No," Lance answered grimly. "It wasn't. If it was, they would have found the bodies. I don't think it was an accident either."

The bathroom was eerily quiet as the two cousins went silent after Lance's confession.

"Maybe you should go," Alli quietly suggested. "You could figure out what happened like this girl apparently wants you to, or you could simply go to make piece with your past. Today is your last day of school and graduation is tomorrow. It really is time for you to move on, Lance."

Lance sat there and pondered Alli's words. He could easily evade Pidge as he had done this morning and move on with his life, pushing the orphanage and all evidence of it from his life. On the other hand, if he did go, he could finally find closure with the orphanage, and possibly the other people who were there. He could finally move on from it in a way that wasn't by avoiding it, but by confronting the problem head-on.

"I hope you make the right decision, Lance," Alli said. He heard footsteps and a door closing, telling him that she had left.

Make the right decision.

Lance thought back on that statement as he laid in his bed that night, and he really hoped he had.

Lance:  
(23:38) where and when do you want to meet me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry about the lack of Hunk in this chapter. He'll be back in the next one though.


End file.
